Marvel's intergalactic gag-fest Guardians of the Galaxy got all the buzz this year, but if you were looking for a landmark moment in multiplex superheroics, it came from an unlikelier source: the Russo brothers' Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Released back in March, people might not have expected all that much from the patriotic protagonist's sophmore outing; after all, there's only so much you can do with a shield-tossing throwback. And yet, seemingly out of nowhere came the grittiest, most realistic comic book blockbuster since Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Morally ambiguous, The Winter Soldier has more in common with conspiracy classics like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View than its spandex-clad contemporaries. --Daniel Bettridge, writer

And here's one of my favorite parts of the movie in which Nick Fury shows Steve Rogers (the Captain) Project Insight, a plan to target and kill thousands of potential terrorists before they have a chance to act (shades of Minority Report!). Steve's response is less than enthusiastic ...